I've heard a deaf man speak -
irregular, unsettling leaps
of vocal cords untied
from careful reins that hearing
holds to modulate
our bursts of sound.
But soul must find expression.
Thus, first, when I imagine all
our resurrected eyes beholding
on that highest throne, a Lamb
once slain of love for us,
and now exalted
as the center of all good,
our tongues must stumble
like the deaf before his
soul's great sound
and cry with mingled joy and grief,
a startling moan of realized love
to shock the universe.
Not so it says.
Somehow, it will be "Worthy!" -
yes, a song of measured words -
"Worthy the Lamb once slain"
from every ransomed tongue,
each ear un-chaosed,
modulated to the music of the spheres.
We know not now the meaning
of restored, unbroken,
as we shall then,
when each ear hears
before that healing throne
its song lined out
upon a thousand, thousand
never-stumbling tongues.
- AFB, 4-26-23
